


I wanted someone to see me

by aflyingcontradiction



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drama, Gen, Mystery, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 19:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12349500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflyingcontradiction/pseuds/aflyingcontradiction
Summary: "I swear I never meant to hurt her. I just wanted us to be together again. To be happy again." - The interrogation of a stalker.Based on putthepromptsonpaper.tumblr.com "I guess I just wanted someone to see me…”





	I wanted someone to see me

“Please tell us your name.”

“Samuel Jones.”

“Well, then let’s get this over with, Sammy.”

“Please don’t call me Sammy, sir.”

“I’ll call you whatever the hell I want, Sammy. Now, you know why you’re here.”

“No! I did nothing wrong!”

“Nothing wrong? Nothing wrong? Will you listen to this fucker, Marino? We caught you red-handed, you little shit, so stop lying!”

“You got it all wrong!”

“Fucking hell, if you don’t…”

“Schuffman, I think you’d better let me handle this.”

“Hm.”

“Alright, Samuel, if we got it all wrong, then tell us what really happened.”

“I … I don’t really know how.”

“Just start from the beginning.”

“The very beginning or…”

“When you saw her and decided to follow her.”

“Okay, but you’re not going to listen to me anyway.” 

“Listening to you is literally the one thing we are here for.”

“Yeah, but you’ve already made up your mind about me!”

“Well, whatever you have to tell us might change our mind, right?”

“I guess … but you’ve got to listen to me, okay?”

“Of course.”

“So... I was hanging out at the playground over on Willow Road. Over by the swings. Because … well …”

“... being creepy is your favourite pastime.”

“Schuffman, will you just…”

“There’s children playing there!”

“I didn’t do anything to anyone, I swear! The children didn’t even notice I was there.”

“We know, Samuel. We know. Go on.”

“So I was hanging out by the swings, because it’s nice there. I’ve always liked swings. At night, when there’s no kids around, I use them sometimes. I go really high. Feels like flying, you know? … Have you tried it?”

“Get to the fucking point.”

“Yes, please do tell us about when you saw her, Samuel.”

“She just appeared, all of the sudden. She was helping Philly onto a swing. I thought I was dreaming at first. But then I haven’t dreamt since … well, I knew I couldn’t be dreaming.”

“Philly? … Oh. The daughter. Philemona.”

“Yeah. I knew it was them the moment I saw them. Couldn’t believe how lucky I was! I wouldn’t have recognised Philly, of course. It’s been so long. But her. I recognised her. She was … she was beautiful. The hair, the eyes, the way she laughed when Philly hugged her. I couldn’t just let her walk away again, could I? Besides, I knew she would want to see me.”

“Did you ask her?”

“Of course I didn’t! I told you, nobody saw me. Nobody ever sees me. And I didn’t want to scare her, you know.”

“You didn’t want to scare her. So you followed her and her daughter home and snuck into her house. Well done.”

“...”

“Go on.”

“...”

“Talk.”

“I’m not going to say anything. He’s just going to make fun of me.”

“Let him talk, Schuffman.”

“Well, fucking talk then. You don’t see me stopping you!”

“So you saw her and you followed her?”

“Yeah, I did. Because I knew that if I let her go again, that’d be it, right? Cause it’s not like she takes Philly to that playground all the time. I’d never seen her there before and I’ve been hanging out there for … man, it’s been six years, hasn’t it? Feels like forever.”

“These things tend to.”

“Well, I followed them. They were on foot, so it wasn’t too hard. She was playing games with Philly the whole way back and they were laughing and singing. I … I couldn’t stay away. I knew she’d want to see me, I just knew. It took maybe ten minutes to get to their place. They live in one of those high-rises now, not too far from the playground. I … I never even thought to look there. When I was … back when … you know, when I first …”

“There, there. It’s hard to talk about, I know. Take your time.”

“... when she still knew me … they had this really nice place out in the suburbs, huge yard and a swing set. I thought I’d looked for her everywhere when … when I came back to town back then. I guess I just hadn’t thought to look in the shitty places, you know?”

“So what did you do when you had followed her to her home.”

“Well, I snuck in through the open door after them. They went up in the lift and I used the staircase. They live on the fifth floor. By the time I’d reached them they’d gone inside. So I just stood in the hallway and waited.”

“And nobody saw you?”

“No. Look at me. I’m not very noticeable. I wanted to wait for her to come back out, but people kept barging in - erm, well - out on me, I suppose. And there was this awful woman who kept running up and down the hallway and screaming at people to shut up or she’d get a knife and cut them open from top to bottom and stuff like that. Nobody was even talking, though. I didn’t really want her to notice me, so I ended up holing up in this weird little closet they had at the end of the hallway. It wasn’t very comfortable, though. I had to squeeze in between all the mops and buckets and it smelled really nasty. Made me want to puke.”

“But you stayed?”

“Well, yeah. I’d only just found her again, I couldn’t just leave!”

“So you stayed in the broom closet … for how long?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Make an educated guess.”

“Well, it was a Friday when I found her. … I keep track, you know. Not all of us do. I think it’s important, though! You lose track of time and next you know you forget your own name and where you came from and where you want to go and then you might as well not be here at all. Don’t you think so, too?”

“My opinion is beside the point. So it was Friday. Go on.”

“That weekend was really rainy and I guess she didn’t have to work that weekend, so they didn’t leave their apartment even once. I checked. I thought maybe I’d work up the courage to just go to the door and knock and say ‘Hey, remember me?’ But I might just have scared her to death, you know, and what with Philly there … I mean, Philly doesn’t know me. She was still a baby when … when I left. So I just stayed in the broom closet.”

“The entire weekend?”

“Yeah. Except when I went to check on the door. I would’ve just stayed in the hallway but that weird woman was still around and I think she might have noticed I was there.”

“She saw you?”

“I said noticed, not saw. Nobody ever sees me. But she started ranting about how there was someone lurking - that’s the word she used. Lurking. Like I’m some sort of…”

“Creepy stalker?”

“Comic book villain! I was just trying to see them again. To let them know I was still around. That’s not a crime.”

“But breaking and entering is.”

“I didn’t break in. Look at me. You know I didn’t break in. I just … snuck in. I waited until they’d left the house on Monday and snuck in.”

“And what did you do once you were in the apartment?”

“Just had a look around. There wasn’t much to look at, the place is tiny. Philly doesn’t even have a room of her own! She used to have a room of her own, even as a baby. A nursery. With baby blue wallpaper full of little lambs. She never actually slept in there, but she had it. That’s my point. And that apartment they live in doesn’t even have a separate bedroom. It just has this little alcove with a bed inside and a curtain in front. They need me! Don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t, but please explain.”

“She’s depressed because I’m gone!”

“Philly?”

“I think he means the mother, Schuffman. … What makes you think that, Samuel?”

“Stop talking to me like that!”

“Like what?”

“Like I don’t notice you’re talking down to me. Like you don’t know I’m right! She lost her job, because she was too sad to work because she lost me! And now she’s working in some greasy fast food joint and barely making ends meet.”

“You followed her to work?”

“Does it matter? I know what I know!”

“You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions, Samuel. Couldn’t some of her current condition be the result of her husband being…”

“Don’t you dare talk to me about that asshole! He’s the reason I’m in this mess in the first place. He’s the reason I had to leave. And then the absolute shithead doesn’t even stick around! He just left them to suffer!”

“Alright. Alright. No need to get upset, Samuel. I am just…”

“You’re just completely clueless! She’s got photos of me everywhere! It has been six years and still her walls are practically papered in my face!”

“Stop lying, you little shit! We found three pictures of you. Keeping some memories of the past doesn’t mean she wants you stalking her, breaking into her place, messing with her stuff and HURTING HER DAUGHTER!”

“I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t. I swear. I...”

“... hey. Samuel. I know. Don’t cry. … Should we take a little break? … Okay. You just stay here and rest for a moment and we’ll be back in a little while.”

\--------------------------------------------------

“You’re not fucking helping with that bad cop act, you know?”

“He just pisses me off, the creepy selfish little shithead.”

“Have some empathy, will you? He’s been through a lot.”

“Bullshit. He’s just playing the victim. It’s not like the rest of us haven’t been through shit, but you don’t see us going after people without so much as a ...”

“If you can’t keep it professional, you can just stay out here and I’ll talk to him alone.”

“You go do that.” 

\--------------------------------------------------

“Hey, Samuel, I’m back. You okay?”

“... yeah … suppose.”

“So would you tell me what happened after you entered the flat.”

“... yeah. I guess. You’ve got to believe me, though, I really didn’t mean for it to happen like it did.”

“I know.”

“Okay. So I started looking through their stuff, right? That’s how I found out she works at a fast food place now. Anyway, I hadn’t really thought about where to go from there, you know. So I just ended up messing with some of her stuff. To let her know I was there. I taped one of the pictures of me to the inside of the door and I found that Lego spaceship I built and put it on the kitchen table. She kept that. Isn’t that proof enough that I was supposed to be there?”

“You wrote a message on the bathroom mirror, too.”

“Yeah, I did. And then I hid … under the bed. Yeah, I know. The monster under the bed. Pretty cliché, right?”

“You’re not a monster.”

“You don’t need to lie to me. So anyway, when she came home with Philly, she saw my messages. She got scared. She shouted at Philly asking her why she’d done that… and when... because obviously all that stuff wasn’t there yet when they left, and then Philly started crying and … God, I didn’t mean to scare her. I just wanted her to know I was still around. I just wanted to be with her and for us to be happy again.”

“Things are never that easy.”

“No shit.”

“So was that when you showed yourself? To let her know it hadn’t been Philly?”

“... no. Should I have? … Maybe I should have. I was too much of a coward, though. I waited until they had gone to bed that night. That’s when I climbed out from under the bed. I whispered her name until she woke up. She sat up and just stared at me in the darkness.”

“She saw you?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. … I’m not sure. She just turned away and started crying. She probably thought she was having a nightmare or something. I tried to get her to look at me but she wouldn’t. So I just climbed back under the bed until the next morning.”

“That can’t have been comfortable. You hid under that bed for how long?”

“Couple of days? I’m not really sure.”

“And they never saw you?”

“No. I keep telling you, nobody ever sees me. They must have noticed I was there, though, because she kept bursting into tears and when Philly asked her what was the matter, she said she was just thinking of me and of …”

“And of?”

“Thinking of me! That’s all! After a couple of days, I couldn’t take it anymore. I just jumped out from under the bed and shouted ‘I’m here. I’m not gone. Please stop crying. You haven’t lost me.’ Yeah, I know that was really stupid. But you try hiding under a bed for days watching your loved ones cry because they think you’re gone.”

“What did she do?”

“She … she screamed and cried even harder. At first I thought I’d just startled her. I thought she’d calm down and hug me and kiss me and be happy again. But then … well, she went and got the phone and locked herself in the bathroom … I listened at the door … and I don’t know who it was that she called up, but she told them that she was hearing my voice again and that things were getting bad and she asked them what she was supposed to do, she had to take care of her daughter, she couldn’t afford to have a breakdown now. That’s when I realised that she hadn’t seen me. Not properly.”

“And that’s when you went after Philly?”

“No! I didn’t go after her. I never meant to hurt her. I swear. I just didn’t know how these things worked. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to touch her. And that’s on me, God, I know that’s on me…”

“So you touched her.”

“I … I only grabbed her arm, nothing else, I swear. I … I guess I just wanted someone to see me. But God, I never meant to hurt her, I swear. I didn’t realise I’d be … I’d be sucked into her the moment I touched her. Nobody ever told me that was going to happen. I could hear … hear her thoughts … and I know she could hear me … but we … we both lost control … of her body … of our thoughts. And I know she could see the accident the way I’d seen it, the blood and the tearing metal and the pain - all of it and I tried to stop and I tried to get out of her mind, I really did. But it didn’t work. She started getting sick. Really sick. She was puking her guts out, puking everywhere. And then she … Mom … came out of the bathroom and started screaming and I tried to call for help, and tried to tell her it was me, and get Philly’s body under control, ‘cause she was convulsing like she was having some sort of fit. But all that came out of Philly’s mouth was this scary croaking noise and Mom was screaming and Philly’s limbs were just turning all over the place, ‘cause I couldn’t get a grip on them and then … then you pulled me out. … How the hell did you even know I was in there?”

“We keep an eye on others left behind.”

“...”

“Hey…”

“...”

“Samuel?”

“I … I … I just wanted us to be happy again. I just wanted us to be together again. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

“Don’t worry, your sister will be fine. Your mother has taken her to a doctor, but they won’t find anything out of the ordinary. You weren’t inside her long enough to do any damage. She probably won’t even remember you possessing her.”

“It … all of this … wasn’t meant to happen like this. Fuck, I was … I am … I was ... ten! Ten fucking years old! I wasn’t meant to die! And I told Dad he couldn’t drive, that he should call a taxi, I told him, I did. But he didn’t listen. And now Mom’s life is fucked up and Philly doesn’t even have a bedroom and I can’t even talk to them and he just … he just … left. He kills me and then he just … leaves to … to wherever dead people go and I’m still here and can’t even help Mom and Philly! It’s just not fair. IT’S NOT FUCKING FAIR!”

“Hey. Samuel. Listen. Listen, please. I’m the last person who’ll argue that point. God, I was stabbed to death on my wedding day. Death isn’t fair. It’s awful, I know. But you can’t give up. You’ve got to try to make the best of your lot in … well …”

“I TRIED! And look where that got me.”

“Contact with your loved ones never leads anywhere good. Trust me. I’ve spent the last fifty years dragging accidental possessors out of the minds of their parents, children and lovers. That way madness lies.”

“Then what the hell do you mean by making the best of it?”

“We spirits aren’t bound to one place. We can go do whatever we want. Travel the world. Speak to people. Give them advice. That’s what Schuffman and I have been dedicating our afterlife to. We’re doing more good now than we ever had any chance to back when we were alive. You just can’t hang around your old family. That connection is too strong. Well, you can, but you’ll end up possessing someone again. … Hey. What is it, Samuel? Why are you looking at me like that? … Spit it out!”

“Are you going to punish me?”

“Oh, stop looking at me like that. What do you think I can possibly do to you that hasn’t already been done to you?”

“Are … are you going to make me disappear? Make me go away. Where my Dad went. To … whatever is beyond … this?”

“Oh, Samuel, child. Do you really think I would be sitting here with you right now, if I had even the slightest idea how to move on?”


End file.
